Total gross written premiums for the insurance industry have increased by 13.68 percent in the first quarter of 2024, with small and medium-sized companies showing higher growthContinue Reading
New research shows the “upside-down trees” originated in Madagascar and then caught a ride on ocean currents to reach mainland Africa and Australia.
Baobabs are one of the most charismatic trees on Earth, thanks in part to their unusual appearance. Their cartoonishly thick trunks are conspicuously oversized relative to their diminutive crowns, earning them the nickname “upside-down trees.” They can also live for thousands of years, contributing to their prominent place in cultural traditions and works of art.
For all the tales told about baobabs, though, their origin story has remained a mystery.
Scientists have debated for years how baobabs wound up in the places where they grow. Eight species exist around the world, and their distribution, like the trees themselves, is unusual: One species occurs across much of mainland Africa, while six are in Madagascar. The last is found faraway, in northwestern Australia.
Most researchers have hypothesized that the trees originated on mainland Africa. But findings published Wednesday in the journal Nature tell a different story. Baobabs instead most likely first evolved in Madagascar, where they diversified into different species. Two then embarked on long-distance oceanic journeys to distant continents.
“Madagascar is this wonderful natural laboratory,” said Tao Wan, a botanist at the Wuhan Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and an author of the new study. He added, “In the case of baobabs, some very special geographical history on the island contributed to the species’ diversity.”
Dr. Wan and his colleagues sequenced the genomes of all eight baobab species and then used those data to understand how the trees evolved. They also investigated ecological factors that influenced the distribution of baobabs around Madagascar.
Their results indicate that baobabs’ common ancestor most likely arose in Madagascar around 21 million years ago. Competition with other plant life and factors like altitude, temperature, precipitation and volcanic activity caused new baobab species to emerge across Madagascar, as did fluctuating sea levels during various ice ages.
Source: nytimes.com
The experts are aviation service providers, airport operators, and other key stakeholders in aviation from 10 African countries.Continue Reading
Airtel Africa has said mobile money revenue in constant currency pushed by East Africa’s strong performance tops its revenue for the year ending March.
The group mobile money revenue grew by 32.8 percent in constant currency compared to mobile services grew by 19.4 percent driven by voice revenue growth of 11.9 percent and data revenue growth of 29.2 percent.
Airtel Africa Chief Executive Officer Olusegun Ogunsanya said in a statement over the weekend that the strong revenue performance was a reflection not only of the opportunity but also the resilience of affordable offerings despite the inflationary pressure across the continent.
“The consistent deployment of our ‘win with’ strategy supported the acceleration in constant currency revenue growth over the recent quarters which has reduced the impact of currency headwinds faced across most of our markets,” Mr Ogunsanya said.
Loss after tax was 89 million US dollars, primarily impacted by significant foreign exchange headwinds, resulting in a 549 million US dollars exceptional loss net of tax following the Nigerian naira devaluation last June 2023 and the Malawian kwacha devaluation last November.
“The growth opportunity that exists across our markets remains compelling, and we are well positioned to deliver against this opportunity.
“We will continue to focus on margin improvement from the recent level as we progress through the year,” the CEO said.
The group’s total customer base grew by 9.0 percent to 152.7 million and also, they continue to bridge the digital divide with a 17.8 percent increase in data customers to 64.4 million and a 20.8 percent increase in data usage per customer.
Mobile money subscriber growth of 20.7 percent reflects their continued investment into distribution to drive increased financial inclusion across our markets.
Transaction value increase of 38.2 percent in constant currency with an annual transaction value of over 112 billion US dollars in reported currency.
Increased transactions across the ecosystem reflect the enhanced range of offerings and increased customer adoption, supporting constant currency ARPU growth of 8.6 percent.
The group said will continue network investment to support an enhanced customer experience and drive increased 4G coverage.
Airtel Africa said 95 percent of sites are now 4G operational, facilitating a 42.3 percent increase in 4G customers over the year.
Source: allafrica.com
Presenting the report for the fiscal year 2022/23 at the Zanzibar State House, on Monday Controller and Auditor General (CAG), Dr Othman Abbas Ali, underscored ongoing challenges despite efforts to enhance financial reporting standardsContinue Reading
The US Embassy in Tanzania has closed for two days because of an internet outage which hit East African countries on Sunday.
“Due to degraded network service nationwide, the embassy will remain closed to the public,” the embassy said on an X (formerly Twitter) post on Monday.
Due to degraded network service nationwide, the embassy will remain closed to the public. All consular appointments on May 14 & 15 will be cancelled and rescheduled to a later date. The consular section will be open as scheduled for visa pick up and for emergency American citizen…
— US Embassy Tanzania (@usembassytz) May 13, 2024
Consular appointments for Tuesday and Wednesday were cancelled and rebooked for a later date. The embassy said it would remain accessible for handling emergency cases involving American citizens and visa collections.
Businesses and homes in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and seven other countries are experiencing slow internet speeds following a cut on deep-sea fibre cables at Mtunzini, a small coastal town in South Africa.
Read: East African countries hit by major internet outage
The fault affected submarine cables serving the East and Southern Africa, largely privately controlled Seacom and East Africa Submarine System (Eassy).
Internet monitoring group Netblocks said Tanzania and the French island of Mayotte were the worst hit by the outage.
Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) said it was working on an alternative route to reinstate connectivity to the country’s major telecom networks while the recovery process of the deep-sea cables was being addressed.
The U.S. Embassy in Tanzania was forced to close its doors to the public for two days due to a widespread internet outage affecting several East African countries, reports BBC News.
The embassy announced the closure via X (formerly known as Twitter) on Monday, citing “degraded network service nationwide”. All consular appointments scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday are cancelled and will be rescheduled for a later date. However, the embassy will remain operational for emergencies involving American citizens and for visa pickups.
The internet disruption began on Sunday morning and caused significant connectivity issues in Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda. According to internet monitoring group NetBlocks, Tanzania is the most severely impacted country.
Industry experts believe the outage stems from faults in the undersea cables that connect the region to the global network via South Africa. Some East African internet users were still experiencing slow speeds, with telecom providers indicating ongoing efforts to fully restore service.
Source: allafrica.com
Tanzania, in keeping with global political trends, reserves 30 percent of seats in parliament for women. These so-called special seats were introduced with multiparty politics in 1992, in response to the low numbers of women elected to positions of power.
There were only eight elected female parliamentarians after the first multiparty elections in 1995. Ten years later, 17 women were elected to parliament, representing 7 percent of legislative seats. Fast forward to the 2020 general elections: women make up 37.4 percent of parliament.
However, only 27 women (10.2 percent) were elected directly from the 264 constituencies.
Special seats are credited for increasing women’s representation. This has enabled the passing of a couple of “gender sensitive” laws.
However, the special seats system is not the magic bullet for achieving gender equality in political representation across the board.
Read: Why Burundi women are sidelined despite gender quota
While political parties have met the legal requirements for nominating women for special seats, concerns linger about the parties’ internal commitment to advancing women’s political participation.
In a recent paper I set out to assess whether the main political parties voluntarily sought to increase women’s participation in their internal leadership positions and candidate lists. In particular, I examined whether their constitutions contained voluntary gender quotas beyond fulfilling the quotas in the national statutes.
I found that the constitutions of both parties recognised women’s rights to representation as enshrined in international and regional conventions as well as national laws, but these commitments largely start and end with the establishment of a women’s wing. Men dominate the parties’ decision-making organs at national and lower levels.
Since its establishment in 1992, Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema or Party of Democracy and Development) has never had a woman among its six main national leaders. The ruling Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM, the Revolutionary Party) named its first female national chair and the first female deputy general secretary-mainland only in 2021. That is 44 years after the party was formed in 1977.
On the face of it, Tanzania has advanced women’s representation. President Samia Suluhu Hassan is one of the few female presidents the African continent has ever had. But that’s not by CCM’s constitutional design. The office of the president became vacant on March 17, 2021, when John Pombe Magufuli suddenly died in power. Suluhu, then the first female vice president in the history of Tanzania, became president.
She was elected CCM’s chair in keeping with the party’s tradition that the president is the party leader.
In addition, for about two years, Christina Mndeme held the position of deputy general secretary-mainland. She was the first woman to hold such a position.
Read: Women’s sparse presence at top health sector jobs stunting progress
As gender representation is not embedded in CCM’s constitution, progress was shortlived.
CCM decision-makers: For instance, while CCM had two women (33 percent) among its six national party leaders in 2021 to December 2022, the number dropped to one (16 percent) after the December 2023 internal elections under Suluhu’s watch.
The national structures of the two main political parties show that commitment to women’s participation is weak. Women now make up 28 percent of the national general assembly, 23 percent of the national executive committee, 25 percent of the central committee, and 16 percent of the national secretariat.
Chadema decision-makers: Over at Chadema, women comprised 10 percent of its national convention after the party’s 2019 election.
Only 8.6 percent of the governing council are women, 15.6 percent of the central committee, and 10 percent of the national secretariat.
CCM would appear to be ahead with 16-28 percent of women in key decision-making organs compared to Chadema (8-15 percent). But both parties are still below the 30 percent critical mass principle established in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action of 1995.
They are also way below the 50/50 men and women representation required under the international and regional conventions.
Similarly, the CCM and Chadema constitutions do not set any numerical gender representation goals in electing their leaders and in nomination of candidates to local and general elections.
Currently, women make up only 10.5 percent of party chairpersons and only 10.5 percent of party secretary generals of 19 registered political parties. Women made up 9.2 percent of all candidates for all positions in the 2020 general election.
At lower levels of party decision making, the story is the same. Women form a small minority in boards of trustees, advisory councils and key departments.
Read: Why everything happens when we invest in girls and women
CCM’s board of trustees has a chair and eight members. At the time of my survey, only one was a woman. Chadema fares better on this score with equal representation of three men and three women. This is both voluntary and temporary because the party’s constitution is silent on the gender composition of the board of trustees.
CCM’s advisory council is composed of former presidents who, by custom, served as CCM chairs for both Mainland and Zanzibar. The council also includes former national party deputy chairs. Since its formation in 1977, CCM’s advisory council has been an all-male council.
Finally, representation at departmental level reveals the same skew. Four of CCM’s five departments are headed by men. Men are at the helm of all Chadema’s four departments, known as directorates.
Despite the difficulties in obtaining data, the available information pointed towards the same under-representation of women in the lower administrative tiers of the two parties.
The low level of women’s representation requires CCM and Chadema, as well as other political parties, to adopt voluntary gender quotas for leadership positions and candidates’ lists in line with the law governing political party affairs.
Alternatively, the law governing political party affairs should set out the gender representation numerical goals for parties’ leadership positions, decision-making organs and candidates’ lists, including rewards and penalties.
By Victoria Melkisedeck Lihiru – Lecturer, Faculty of Law, The Open University of Tanzania
Money sent home by Kenyans living and working abroad grew 23.1 percent during the first four months of this year to hit $1.6 billion (Sh210.4 billion) compared to the $1.3 billion (Sh170 billion at current exchange rates), buoyed by easing inflationary pressures in developed economies.
Latest data from the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) indicates that Kenyans living in diaspora remitted $397.3 million (Sh52.2 billion) in April to add onto the cumulative $1.2 billion (Sh157.8 billion) sent home during the first quarter of the year, with last month’s inflows being the least during the review period.
January recorded the highest amount so far this year at $412.4 million (Sh54.2 billion) followed by March which posted $407.8 million (Sh53.6 billion) while February came third at $385.9 million (Sh50.7 billion).
The combined amount sent back to Kenya between January and April 2024 translates to a $267.5 million (Sh35.2 billion) increase from the inflows that were wired into the country during the first four months of last year.
Increased dollar inflows from Kenyans abroad have partly helped ease pressure on the shilling this year by supporting the supply side of the dollar against demand by importers shipping in goods.
Last month, the US retained its position as the largest source of remittances to Kenya, accounting for 49 percent of the total remitted value which was a drop from its 56 percent contribution in March.
During the three-month period to last March, the United Kingdom (UK) overtook Saudi Arabia to become the fastest-growing source of diaspora dollar flows into Kenya.
Other top sources of remittances include Germany, Australia, the United Arab Emirates, Tanzania as well as Canada.
The improvement of overall remittances’ performance follows the cooling off of the Russia-Ukraine conflict which had disrupted global supply chains, sending global inflation to decades-high levels.
Sky-high energy, food and rent prices due to the supply disruptions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 had pushed up living costs in the US and Europe, eating into the disposable income that Kenyans in those economies tap to assist families and dependents back home.
Since 2015, remittances from abroad have remained the largest source of foreign cash flows into Kenya ahead of tourism, foreign direct investments and the export of agricultural products such as tea and coffee.
A CBK-commissioned Kenya Diaspora Remittances Survey Report of December 2021 showed that the largest share of the inflows goes into supporting families at home to buy food and household goods as well as pay medical bills and school fees.
Majorca business owners are sick and tired of Brits who holiday there They accused Brits of treating the ‘beautiful’ island terrible The Balearic Islands’ government is cracking down on bad behaviour By Arthur Parashar In Magaluf, Majorca Published: 04:41 EDT, 13 May 2024 | Updated: 05:56 EDT, 13 May 2024Continue Reading
